But why is SLOX lacking a MAPI connector? Here's our short tale of woe: SuSE assured us that its MAPI connector would be available in time for our tests. When we installed the product in April, the CD didn't have the connector, but we weren't worried. Toward the end of April, when it still wasn't available, we started to ask our SuSE contacts about it. Finally, after a series of e-mail and voicemail messages that some might term threatening, we got the company's final answer--no connector until late this year! We asked why and were told, "after all, this is open-source code and it's difficult to predict when something will be finished." We hope this doesn't become a common excuse in the open-source community.
And what about the other vendors in this supposedly exploding market? We contacted most of the first- and second-tier mail-server vendors, and even some third tier, to discuss our tests and their plans for moving into the Exchange Server replacement market. Many of these vendors said they are interested in entering the MAPI-connector market but most are still at the planning stage. In particular, keep your eyes on Rockliffe. You should see something from this vendor soon.
Oracle and IBM have MAPI connectors but declined to participate in our tests. Oracle purchased an Outlook connector when it bought Steltor in 2002 and rolled that technology into its Collaboration Suite. The folks at Oracle talked about wanting to compete against Microsoft and IBM-Lotus but, in our opinion, they didn't have a good reason for declining to participate in this review. IBM's Lotus division has a MAPI connector for Domino but the company is in the process of moving the development of this connector in-house. Initially IBM agreed to participate, but later it declined. Ironically, the third-party developer for IBM's old connector was Microsoft.
The SCO Group has a MAPI connector for its SCOoffice Mail Server. SCO suspended shipment of its Linux-based products in May because of its legal battle over Linux. The company contends Linux is an unauthorized derivative of Unix. SCOoffice Mail Server can run on UnixWare 7 with Linux Kernel Personality, but with all the legal maneuvering going on, SCO bypassed the chance to participate in our tests.
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